


Seven Devils All Around You

by AvaCelt



Category: Proxy Series - Alex London
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 12:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3134342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaCelt/pseuds/AvaCelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The 4th Quarter Quell, the 100th annual Hunger Games, and for the first time ever, a pair can go home alive, and they don't even have to be in the same district. Sex-restrictions are lifted. Districts have to give up a set of twins and two districts both give up two daughters a piece, all twelve and crying for their mothers. To add fuel to the fire, the Capitol sends its own pair into the arena: Knox Brindle, President Eeron Brindle's own flesh and blood, and the Gamemaker's daughter, Marie Louise Alvarez. Everyone knows they are bound to win. Everyone knows that any sign of revolution has been effectively quenched. There is no God; only blood.</p><p>That is, until District Three's Siddharth “Syd” Carton and Egan Stone decide to volunteer for the first time in 76 years of Hunger Games history.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Devils All Around You

**Author's Note:**

> [Edit](http://theoryofthevanquished.tumblr.com/post/107195069837/favorite-relationship-sydknox-sydknox-hunger) included.
> 
> Title from "Seven Devils," by Florence + the Machine.

Baram raised him since he could carry a wrench, because it was either his shop or the orphanage where Egan Stone learned to become bloodthirsty. He, the small Indian boy with too big eyes and too little self-confidence, he sat and learned all that Baram had to offer, and they watched the recaps of the Games on the small television set in the kitchen, and when the time came, the Reaping in the Valve square like every other unfortunate being reeking of oil and dust. Of course, this year was their year, the year District Three would receive punishment in the form of having two thirteen year old twins stolen from their screeching mother's arms. The Boy and the Girl hold hold each others hand, shaking like leaves as they rise to the dais where they're to be publicized for all of Mountain Country to see. It's only after he turns his head towards Syd that he notices the sixteen year old is no longer there, and a familiar voice shouts “I volunteer,” before another cackles that he, too, volunteers.

When they are introduced, Marie knows she'll do anything in her power to lead them to victory, even if it means throwing Knox into a pit of genetically enhanced vipers. They're dressed in metallic gray blazers, pastel pink shirts, and dark blue slacks. They're hollow-cheeked, standing tall, but no amount of makeup and Capitol food will be able to disguise the fact that they've starved their whole lives and thrived in, Marie has no doubt, dirt and grease. Syd Carton's hands are clenched at his sides, but Egan Stone, bright red hair with pink and yellow streaks, smiles as if it's his stage, his show. Marie swears to the Old Gods, the ones that ruled thousands of years ago, that even if she has to take her own life, she will not let District Three's sacrifice go to waste. Not in this lifetime.

The Games take place in an arid climate. They're on a plateau, the sky blue, sun blazing, a hidden promise that as soon as the Gong rings, the dust storm will begin and they will be blinded. Guardian, District 1, she can do this. Maybe she understands that she can't make it out of this alive, because this is President Eeron Brindle's game, and despite being trained for this her entire life, she has to at least put on a good show before someone skewers her neck with hand-made talons. Finally, the Gong does hit, and those who want to kill, end up killing, and those who intend to scatter, end up grabbing the packs and run for sparse cliffs and vegetation scattered throughout the arena. Except the tributes from District Three, the engineers of Mountain Country, the ones living in absolute poverty, the ones that have probably never had to eat anything more than a piece of moldy bread and a glass of water to survive the night. They don't grab a thing, simply begin running, and keep running until Guardian notices that there's something incredibly stiff and humid about her clothes, and why, oh why are District 12's girls dropping their packs and running away as they glance at her in horror. She doesn't get to figure it out, because the fire-breathing earth worm's already burnt her to her bones.

The vamped-up fire-breathing Mongolian Death Worm immediately cuts the warring pool from the fourteen survivors to ten. Ten people, Simi and Cheyenne think, us versus them. It should have been them and Knox, and even Marie, versus the rest until they had to fight it out amongst themselves for the crown, but this year, there would only be two winners. It would either be them, the ones who scattered, us, Simi and Cheyenne agree. Us or them. Cheyenne is the one who notices the boy kissed with fire immediately grab his district partner and dash away and off the offending plateau, as if he's sensed something, smelled death at his feet, seen his future. Simi and Cheyenne, they survive the Mongolian Death Worm, they run for mountains off to the east, hoping to evade capture, and as they dash through the sparse grass, Cheyenne thinks the boy with the muddy eyes and dark brown skin, skin kissed by the sun's fire, the boy who grabbed his friend's hand and tore away from the Cornucopia and the plateau as if they were the very vestiges of Hell itself, that boy reminded Cheyenne of one of the paintings in her mother's shop. It was a religious painting, Cheyenne thinks. Rama, Simi tells her when night finally falls. The boy kissed by fire, Simi whispers as they stare at the clear night sky, he looks like Rama.

Gordis, mentor for District Seven's tributes, has no idea who Rama is, but it must be a god of some importance if two teams have pledged to die for him and his partner. Syd Carton cannot fight as well as Egan Stone, but he can run, he can trap, he has helped, shown kindness, stopped his partner from slaughtering those who are too young to know that there is no winner, only survivors. Rama, Gordis thinks, must be an elder god of one of those dead religions, of people who'd passed, of nations and borders set alight when the world caved in on itself and declared its own expiration date. But Gordis has no time to care for trivialities- before the week is over, either the volunteers of District Three will persevere, or Eeron Brindle's son will solidify his claim to the presidency.

The Maes siblings, District Six's darlings, they have no souls and they don't intend to pretend like they have one either. Eeron Brindle has to stay in power, or else their family won't reap the benefits of all the drugs keeping District Six in the dregs and without any sense to rebel. It keeps us alive, Maes Girl thinks. It keeps Ma from joining the whores, thinks Maes Boys. If Knox Brindle doesn't survive, things will be bad. But then again, he will survive either way, because if there's one thing that can't go wrong, it's Eeron Brindle's plans. So Maes Girl and Maes Boy decide to kill District Three's tributes, the volunteers, the ones who dared to step up after 76 years of silence. It's too bad they only get the boy with the colored streaks in his hair, but Maes Boy should have been paying attention, because the boy whose eyes are as dead as his friend stabs his sister in the throat and plants the other knife in between his eyes. He falls to the ground without a world escaping his lips.

And then there were five, and Bovary, she knows it's now or never. Syd Carton has to live. Marie Louise Alvarez told her so. Knox Brindle has to die, and if he doesn't, Syd will never win, and the revolution will die. The remaining survivors know they have no chance at survival, but if they have to jump into the pit of fire, they intend to take Syd with them. Marie won't let them. Marie fights, Marie lets them cut and slash at her, and Bovary, Bovary was only a nurse at one of District Nine's few clinics, what can she do? A spear comes spinning towards Syd's back, and Bovary jumps. She thinks his face is quite beautiful as she lays dying in his arms.

When Knox kisses him square on the mouth, it's not because he's desperate for affection, and it's definitely not because he wants to make Syd feel any better. Syd doesn't need to feel better. Syd needs to survive, and the only way he's going to survive is if Mountain Country knows that the boy kissed by fire and graced by dead gods had also managed to destroy the last surviving link to Mountain Country's Presidency. OK, so he lied, maybe he does want to make Syd feel better, but more than that, he wants Syd to remember that he's doing this for Syd, not for the world, and that Marie's the Causegirl of the pack, not him. He doesn't care about the revolution, about the people, about the countless murders of innocent children for the sake of reminding Mountain Country of a war that ended exactly a hundred years ago. Knox has only really cared about himself and his mother, and his mother is dead. Knox is alone. He's alone, and he's kissing Syd because he makes him feel not alone, wanted, maybe even loved. Perhaps not in this lifetime, perhaps not even in the next one, but for now, Syd loves him. In this moment, Knox is loved, and he's loved by the boy kissed by fire, the boy who's smoldering under the gaze of the unforgiving son. Finally, Knox pulls away and lets Syd watch as the fire engulfs him while he falls into the pit. Knox decides he will not scream, and he doesn't. The fire is far too beautiful to hurt him now.

Eeron Brindle's son is dead, and Siddharth “Syd” Carton and Marie Louise Alvarez are the victors of the 100th annual Hunger Games. With the rise of the victors comes the flames of the uprising. Fires erupt across the Capitol, fires that seem to arrive from nothingness. Dams flood, food spoils, electricity goes out for good. District Three arms itself with mecha-armor and tanks engineered over its hundred years of punishment. Each tank is named after each District Three tribute killed. Every mecha-suit holds two pilots, and borders and gates are once again lit with brimstone and blood. Syd Carton leads the charge.

And Eeron Brindle's son is dead.


End file.
